The Hindu Business Line : Creating an organisational culture that delivers

It took me only five business days to learn a harsh but invaluable lesson that was to form a cornerstone of my entire career. About eight years ago, I'd accepted a short-term consultancy contract with a large media company in the UK. As with most contracts, I first needed to establish a baseline of information. In my meeting with the company's Programme Director, Steve, at the end of day one, I'd mentioned in a fairly offhand fashion that I'd be able to deliver a snapshot report in a week or so. Now in my previous contract "a week or so" could mean anytime up to a month, sometimes longer. With this in mind, I gradually pulled things together, but soon realised the task was much larger than I'd envisaged. I found myself stuck in the detail.

Four days later, a colleague happened to mention that I was expected to deliver the report on the following day. I was puzzled by this and asked Steve why he wanted it so quickly. Levelling his particularly formidable gaze at me, he said, "Because you said so". His tone of voice left me in no doubt that if I didn't deliver a high-quality report to him on time, then I may as well start looking for another contract.

This may sound like an example of heavy-handed management, but what happened next is instructive. In order to deliver the report I needed to gather information from six senior managers, many of whom I hadn't even met. Although most of the meetings were already scheduled I thought the deadline was impossible given the likelihood that most of the managers would be too busy to speak to me. As it turned out, however, I was able to speak to all of the managers, gather the information and present the report on time.

This was only possible because each of the managers stuck to their meeting timetables and gave me adequate attention. I soon realised that regardless of designation, it was expected that if someone working for that company made a promise to deliver a piece of work (or to attend a meeting, or make a phone call) then they stuck by it. Anything less was unacceptable.

Those words "because you said so" are chiselled in my mind. I now think very carefully before I set an expectation for a delivery.

Some may read this and say "So what? I work for a world-class company and we always deliver on time." If that's the case, then good luck to them. For the most part, however, I suspect that such a response is delusional. It's common knowledge that most organisations do not even begin to approach a state in which people stick to their initial forecast delivery date.

This isn't just a problem in India; it tends to be the status quo everywhere. People learn that near enough is good enough and subtly adjust to fit the culture. Even if they did want to deliver work on time, the failures of their colleagues would prevent them from fully achieving deadlines as most major tasks are interconnected with other tasks that are beyond a person's control.

One would expect that some industries would be different and indeed they are. Commoditised service companies live or die by their ability to consistently deliver on time. Pizza anyone? But as a service becomes less commoditised and more variables are introduced, consistent delivery becomes harder to achieve.

IT, for example, is an industry that has become obsessed with standards and protocols as it attempts to tame the unpredictable.

I once worked with a brilliant manager who had over 30 years of experience working on international IT programmes. Although she had worked with the brightest people on the most cutting-edge programmes, her rule of thumb was that most deliveries would take three times longer than first expected and consume three times the resources originally forecast.

This sounds insane on the surface, but consider the commonly cited fact that 60 per cent of IT projects fail and only a tiny fraction are delivered on time and on budget — original time and budget that is, not the latest re-forecast of the re-forecast. The point to note is that delivering any task successfully is often much more difficult than originally planned.

It's easy to promise the world without considering the multitudes of sub-tasks that one needs to perform.

In a large organisation — in which each department relies on the inputs of other departments — the situation becomes even more complex. It is for these reasons that tasks and initiatives should be treated with full respect and promises made very carefully.

So how do you create a delivery culture, a culture in which each person in the organisation can be counted upon to habitually produce work on time and to the expected standard? The following list is a good start:

Get the right people in place. People will only ever become good at something if they like what they are doing. The right people want to deliver successfully and will have the discipline and tenacity required to do so.

Make a habit of using formal plans to better forecast deliverables and inter-dependencies.

Make plans public and ensure they are updated regularly.

Transparent plans make it much easier to monitor progress.

Recognise and reward successful delivery wherever you find it. In particular, celebrate teamwork as most successful deliveries are usually a group effort. The overall delivery is only as good as the weakest link in the chain.

Ensure that you (and other managers if applicable) are always seen to meet your own deadlines.

Continually reinforce the importance of meeting deadlines and quality expectations. It's like physical exercise: the initial training is fun, but can soon wear off. Only the truly dedicated win gold medals.

Creating a delivery culture sounds simple in theory, but is very difficult to create in practice. Industry standards and protocols may help, but at the end of the day it's the attitude and rigour that lie in an organisation's heart that make the difference. And as the pace of global business accelerates, it becomes a must-have for any successful business.

(The writer is CEO, Capita Offshore Service, Mumbai)